Strategic Withdraw
by OyHumbug
Summary: Flash Fic Prompt #1: Into The Wild - When Oliver and Digg try to break into Queen Consolidated to investigate his mother during S1, they run into a little wrinkle named Felicity Smoak. To get around her network vigilance, they devise a company retreat: seven days in the middle of nowhere - just Oliver, Felicity, and the entire IT and Security Departments. What could go wrong?
1. Chapter 1

**FF#1: Strategic Withdraw**

**Flash Fic Prompt #1: Into The Wild**

Queen Consolidated's company retreats were famous. In fact, they were one of the reasons why Felicity had accepted a position at the Starling City based corporation following graduation from college. After all, Starling City itself was certainly not a draw. The company retreats, however?

Legendary.

For a girl born and raised in Vegas and then educated in Boston, she had actually seen very little of the country. Forget about the world. There had been no Smoak family car trips growing up, no cross-country drives between MIT and the apartment her mother had lived in all of Felicity's life. She had even missed out on those right-of-passage spring break vagina-tions every female, college student was supposed to participate in. A full scholarship covered a lot of things but not drunken debauchery on South Beach.

So, yeah, that's where the QC company retreats came in and played a roll in Felicity's life-making decisions. If she could get an all-expense, luxury vacation (albeit one with her coworkers) as a bonus for doing what she loved for a multinational, multi-billion dollar conglomerate? Sign her up. And she had signed... right on the dotted line, her signature large, and flowing, and proud.

There was a catch, however. Because of how sick the retreats were, only a portion of the company went every year, based partly on job performance and partly on schedule. A few years before she joined QC, the tradition was to take a department or two for a week-long cruise. From Starling City, to some tropical port, and then back again, lucky employees were treated to seven days of sunshine and sea air on board the Queen's Gambit. But then,_that_happened_ –_ i.e. half of the Queen family went down with their ship, and that particular company retreat itinerary sunk like a cell phone being dropped into a toilet... which, first hand, Felicity could attest to. (Sidenote, don't use your cleavage as an emergency purse... no matter how convenient, fun (hello, vibrations from incoming test messages), and sweaty (who doesn't like a little lady perspiration?) said emergency purse might be.)

Anyway, after the Queen's Gambit made like the Titanic, the company retreat had been retooled slightly, but it still rocked enough to make Felicity commit to the rudderless company. Since she had started at QC, not only had it gained some leadership after Moira Queen entered into the Steele business, but the company retreats had continued. There had been a wine-country (read, wine-tasting) excursion to Napa, Ship Week in San Diego (hello, sailers!), and even a train ride through Canada (she had a thing for trains thanks to Agatha Christie and Canadians because of_Brother Bear_). Alas, however, not once during all her years so far at Queen Consolidated (okay, so only four, but it seemed so much longer when all her co-workers were being spoiled by trips and she was stuck looking at Bert and Ernie's love children in the IT Department day in and day out) had Felicity been one of the lucky corporate retreat recipients.

Until that year.

It was strange, because usually the retreats came during the summer months, but who was she to look a gift-trip horse in the mouth? (Besides, horse teeth were frightening large.) So, when the email went out, informing Felicity to pack warm, because she, her entire, disproportionately hairy department, and the security department would be leaving Starling City for an entire week, the dance she performed wasn't just happy; it was ecstatic. Given the Queen's tendency towards the extravagant and the instructions to dress like a ski bunny, Felicity had immediately assumed either Aspen or Big Bear, and she had always wanted to go to Aspen or Big Bear. Not to ski, of course. Skiing was dangerous. But to stay at some ritzy ski resort, flirt with ski instructors, and find out for herself just how good of an exercise skiing really was. Oh, and the hot tubs! Hot tubs surrounded by snow and ice were always more inviting, right?

So, with a mountain of luggage and an even bigger mountain of expectations, Felicity had shown up at QC headquarters that morning with a smile only rivaled by a toothpaste model's. It had dimmed slightly when they weren't immediately escorted to the airport, but she had justified the road trip with ideas of inter-company bonding. When they bypassed the exit that would have taken them inland towards Colorado and all of her_Aspen Extreme_ fantasies, Felicity had felt a twinge of disappointment, but she consoled herself with thoughts of Big Bear... only they didn't head South either. Instead, their caravan of SUV's only drove them a couple of hours into the wilderness that was the California countryside, no slopes, snow, or blonde-haired Scandinavian men in sight. Her anticipation had dimmed accordingly, but it did not flicker out entirely until she was dropped off unceremoniously in the middle of nowhere, the SUV's pulling away to leave her surrounding by sweaty, balding middle-aged men, nature, and Oliver Queen.

A_Troop Beverly Hills _camping trip this was not.

Felicity felt so dejected, she wanted to cry; she felt so betrayed, she wanted to scream; she felt so annoyed that everything else was pushed back and ignored in favor of her go-to reaction when pushed to the extremes emotionally: sarcasm.

Oliver – who had_absolutely _nothing to do with the company whatsoever (thank god, the guy was an imbecilic, skirt-chasing freeloader) – was prattling on about trust, and survival, and, in lay-man's terms, the bathroom buddy system when Felicity just couldn't take the insult of his presence, let alone his sparkly eyes, and dimples, and muscles, and stupid pretty face any longer. So, she snorted, and, from where she was standing in the back of the group, snarked to the person next to her, "five years on a tropical island and suddenly he thinks he's Bear Grylls.

Several co-workers around her snickered, which, admittedly, made Felicity feel slightly better about herself (if not their regrettable situation)... that was until Oliver started walking towards her, the crowd parting for him like he was Moses (or had the personal hygiene habits of Moses). Traitors. "Ah, Miss Smoak, is it?" By the smirk on his idiotic, handsome face (and by the way his eyes had flickered down towards her name-tagged chest and lingered there for several unnecessary seconds... unless, you know, he was having difficulty with her name, given that it had more than two syllables – after all, he had referred to her by her surname only, and he was dumb enough to fail out of four schools), he knew exactly who she was, so Felicity did not give him the satisfaction of responding.

By the time he was standing directly before her, they were only inches apart, and, unfortunately, she couldn't find a single complaint with his hygiene habits. He smelled... like every single one of her sexual fantasies. Oy. "You know, I want to thank you for being such a team-player and good sport about this. It's nice to see someone embracing something new and different." Briefly, Oliver looked away from her to address the rest of the group, his grin too bright, too brittle, too beautiful to be real. "I'm aware that this isn't the type of company retreat you're used to or that you were expecting, but I promise you that it'll be a week you never forget."

"If we manage to survive that long," Felicity grumbled.

She shouldn't have, though, because it just brought Oliver's attention back to her that much sooner. "I also want to thank Miss Smoak for volunteering. While the rest of you will be sharing cabins just a few klicks away from here, she will be staying with me. In a tent." Before Felicity could object with a question, he supplied an answer, "unfortunately, there just weren't enough cabins for everyone." Turning his back towards her, Oliver sauntered away, pausing briefly to toss over his shoulder, "by the way, Miss Smoak, it was a temperate island, not tropical."

Forget her survival. A week with Oliver 'I'm-A-Pompous-Butthole-Playboy' Queen? She was going to kill him.

**…**

Dusting off his hands, Oliver turned around to face Felicity who he assumed was watching him put together their tent (judging by her silence) only to find her bent over, nose buried in a tablet. "What the hell do you think you're doing," he snapped at her, striding across the opening in which they were encamped and snatching the electronic device from her grasp.

"The email said no cell phones," she explained, already reaching desperately towards him and her contraband. "It said absolutely nothing about tablets or laptops. Now," she huffed, standing up and holding a hand out towards him. "Give that back."

"No."

Pivoting away from her, Oliver made his way towards the small stream that ran through the woods, Felicity hot on his heels and complaining the entire way. She was whining about how he couldn't expect her to go a week without checking her email, without the internet, without Flappy Bird... whatever the hell that was. "How do you even have signal out here," he questioned. While he knew she was smart – hell, that was why he was on this ridiculous retreat with QC's nerd squad, he had intentionally picked their location because of its remoteness.

"Satellites. Duh."

And then she was off to the races again,_bitching_. Oliver sighed, and immediately went back to ignoring Felicity, trampling through the underbrush and not caring that she wasn't dressed properly to be following him. She'd either find sturdy shoes and clothes from one of her _fifteen _bags eventually. Or she wouldn't. Either way, he didn't care. What he did care about, however, was the fact that, no matter what, Felicity Smoak could not be online while they were gone on their little trip to nowhere.

After trying – and failing, thanks to one annoyingly good at her job IT girl who made a late-night trip into work after he tripped some alarm on her computer – to break into QC's network and get some information on his mother, only managing to escape her detection by hiding in the crawl space above the ceiling tiles in her office, he had come up with the ridiculous plan to get anyone and everyone out of the building who could potentially become wise to what he was trying to do. While he distracted the IT and security departments with a bogus company retreat, Digg had stayed back in Starling and, with some men he trusted, was combing through Queen Consolidated's computer system and installing means for them to keep tabs on not only his mother but everything the company was doing.

And the last thing he needed was Felicity Smoak to ruin his plans_yet again_.

Without ceremony, he tossed her tablet into the stream, only to have to scramble and latch onto the fiery blonde when she tried to launch herself into the water after it. "What the hell do you think you're doing," she screeched, returning his earlier question and, all the while, struggling against his hold around her waist. He wasn't sure if she was protesting his actions with her tablet... or with her. All Oliver knew was that it was going to be one hell of a long week.

And that was before her shirt rode up, and the bare skin of his forearm touched that of her stomach.

Son of a...


	2. Day Two

_Aloha,_

_The response to FF#1: Strategic Withdraw was so overwhelmingly AT&T (More. We want more!), and I had so much fun writing it, that I decided to follow your _advice_ ;-) and continue this story. As you can probably guess by the chapter title, I'm thinking this will be around seven posts - one for each day Oliver and Felicity are trapped in the woods together. Perhaps there will be an eighth part to wrap things up once they're back in Starling? We'll see. Anyway, I hope this second chapter (and subsequent ones) live up to the first. Thanks for all your amazing feedback and enjoy!_

_~Charlynn~_

_P.S. What Felicity does in this chapter? Yeah... that's totally ripped off my sister. She does it. For real. I'm not joking. And it's probably even more hilarious than I can describe or you can imagine._

**FF#2: Strategic Withdraw – Day Two**

**Flash Fic Prompt #2: Game On**

Oliver had always enjoyed doing it with Thea.

Well, he guessed it was more doing it _to _her.

When his little sister was growing up, she was his shadow. Wherever Oliver went, so, too, did Thea... when appropriate. Given that he was ten years older and, let's face it, a shithead, there were some things Oliver did, some places that he went, that an impressionable little girl just couldn't tag along.

However, when they were together, Oliver loved to mess with her... probably because she was so easy to mess with. To this day, he wasn't sure if Thea was as gullible as she had made herself out to be as a child, or if she had been wise to his amusement and simply played along. Given her penchant for reading him like a fashion magazine (because Thea Queen didn't do literature) ever since he had returned from the island, Oliver was leaning more towards the latter option.

But that didn't erase his fond memories of playing (sleeping) possum with his bright eyed, gap-toothed baby sister.

Those memories, however, didn't even come close to how fun it was to do the same thing to one bug eyed, gap-brained Felicity Smoak. So... his descriptions of her might not exactly be accurate. Sue him. He could afford it. Because Oliver didn't care; he was sticking with the insults, because the woman was just so. Damn. Annoying. He couldn't say them out loud, because she'd screech, and holler, and probably try to pull out yet another piece of tech that he'd just have to destroy. So far, after sending her tablet to swim with the fishies (her words... of which she had far too many, not his), Oliver had also confiscated and destroyed a second tablet, an iPod, and a laptop.

Instead of calling her Felicity, he might as well call her Circuit City.

Or... maybe he _had _called her that, to which she had responded that the electronics chain-store had gone out of business – bankrupt... just like QC would if he was ever put in charge.

Then she had proceeded to _inform _him that he would replacing her illegally captured and capsized babies. (Yes, he had thrown the other pieces of tech into the water, too, and, yes, Felicity had certainly used as many boat and drowning references as she could the day before.)

But yes. Babies.

As in children.

The woman was officially certifiable.

And he had met The Count.

By the time Felicity pulled out the laptop, Oliver was pretty sure she was doing so just to get new computer equipment out of him, because, while she didn't know why he absolutely refused to allow her access to the internet, she knew that he wouldn't back down, and, while he might call her gap-brained, there was no denying that Felicity Smoak had an intellect practically unrivaled. She wasn't an idiot. There was no way that she thought, 'oh, hey, let me try this a _fourth_ time and actually think that there is going to be a different result.'

So, this was payback.

And it was delicious.

The situation: Felicity had to go to the bathroom. Although she had bitched and moaned the entire previous day about his 'No Squatting Without a Spotter' motto (again, her words), Felicity was also a rule follower... even if she didn't particularly understand or agree with the rules – both of which applied to his stance on the buddy system. In everybody's case except for Felicity, the rule was to protect them, to keep them safe, because he knew that the men and women on the retreat with them weren't exactly wilderness experts. However, in Felicity's case, at that point, he didn't care if she sat on a pile of poison ivy or got attacked by coyotes; he just couldn't afford her sneaking off and somehow either having an electronic device hidden on her person (because he hadn't taken to frisking her – yet) or somehow managing to make herself a means of communication with some bark and a little mud.

Because if somebody could MacGyver a cell phone out of nothing, it would be Felicity Smoak.

But it was more than just Felicity's need to be a brown-noser that kept her inside the tent with him and from going off on her own. While she'd never admit it, Oliver had a suspicion that she was scared. The night made a lot of people nervous, and Felicity wasn't exactly an adrenaline junkie. So, she was trying to wake him up so that he would go outside with her while she went to the bathroom.

Only... he was totally awake, and her antics and complaints while trying to _wake _him were even more entertaining than what Thea's used to be as a child. The way Oliver looked at it, eight year old Thea had about the same mentality as twenty-four year old Felicity Smoak. The only difference?

Yeah... Felicity didn't look like a child.

Perhaps that was another reason why he was pretending to still be asleep: because he definitely did not want to see Felicity in her _pajamas_ again.

"Psst! Oliver, are you awake?"

He didn't move, keeping his breathing regulated and deep.

Then she poked him. It was just in the ribs, and it was far from painful, but that didn't mean that the childish tactic didn't irk him. Again, though, Oliver remained still.

Next, she kicked him. To accompany the foot he took to the shin, she said, "hey, genius whose idea it was for us to sleep together... I mean, bunk together. Why does that still sound dirty – only... like, prepubescent dirty? Anyway, wake up."

The woman seriously needed medication.

Although he didn't _miraculously_ open his eyes, Oliver did shift slightly, turning his back towards her and moving further away.

She followed.

When he felt her elbows dig into his sides, he knew, without looking, that she was leaning down into him and looking over his reclined form. Then, he felt her hair tickle his face – her curly, loose hair, because _that _was a good idea when in the woods and sleeping on the ground. It was only by tapping into the last thread of his patience that he didn't jump when her voice was suddenly _right _in his ear. "Five years on an island by yourself, my ass. You sleep through my babbling; there's no way you could survive a fight with a polar bear and live through the smoke monster."

She spoke nonsense – like always, it seemed. If he hadn't known that Felicity Smoak was full of hot air, the fact that her warm breath was fanning across his face and neck would have given it away.

Bug eyed, gap-brained mouth-breather.

"Fine," Felicity relented and complained all in the same word. "But if I get lost in the woods and die. Or get kidnapped by cannibalistic zombies with radiation poisoning. Or see a snake. I will haunt you, Oliver Queen. We're talking Dr. Malcolm Crowe, too... and I would _so _not look pretty bald."

She stomped out of the tent... well, as much as anyone _could _stomp out of a tent given that they had to bend over in order to duck through the zipper enclosure... and then proceeded to whine as she moved away from the clearing in which they were encamped. Oliver listened closely, giving her a slight head start, and, then, when he felt she was far away and distracted enough, he slipped out after her, following at a slight distance. Even if she would get suspicious, though, and look back, he'd know what she was doing even before she started to spin around – reading her body language, and he'd fade into the shadows, using the dense forest to camouflage himself. As soon as Felicity entered the tree-line, however, he knew there was no way she'd ever become aware of him... even if he went right up to her and tapped her on the shoulder.

The woman made that much noise.

In part bafflement and part amusement, he watched as she scrunched down, _attempted _to tip-toe, and then repeatedly clapped her hands. Twisting from side to side – first to the left, then to the right, then back to the left – over and over again, she clapped rhythmically – twice in close procession each time she shifted.

It was the most ridiculous thing Oliver had ever seen.

And he had watched Tommy shave for the first time.

While he didn't want to reveal his presence, or that he was awake, or that he had only been pretending to be asleep (because then he couldn't do that for the rest of the five mornings they were stuck together), Oliver simply couldn't stay quiet. So, leaning casually against a tree – legs crossed at the ankles, arms crossed over his bare chest, he nonchalantly (and keeping the bewilderment out of his voice) asked, "what the hell are you doing?"

Her arms flew up in fright, causing her already short, thin slip of a nightgown to rise up as well. Oliver was pretty sure that he caught a glimpse of the matching panties she had on underneath. Felicity also squeaked, jumped, and nearly fell when her heeled slipper clad ankles turned when she landed. As she was twisting around to face him while doing so, he was rewarded, tortured with, taunted with a generous viewing of her cleavage, the lavender silk doing very little to cover her breasts... and that was before she straightened. Once she was standing tall, shoulders rolled back in pride and confidence despite the fact that her face could rival that of a male cardinal's, Oliver couldn't take his eyes away from... the almost invisible spaghetti straps holding up her _pajamas_.

"Cold?"

But Felicity Smoak didn't miss a beat. She dropped her own gaze so that it pointedly caressed him below the waist, lifting a sculpted brow in challenge. "I guess so."

He always slept shirtless, the heat... or, more appropriately, the lack there of... not affecting him, but Felicity's excuse, when he had seen her pull out her sleeping attire, was that she had thought they were going to a a swank ski resort... which had meant she had packed with the idea of doing a lot of ski instructors. Or... more like one, she had clarified, amending her statement by saying that she had planned on doing a lot with one ski instructor, and everyone knew that blonde haired, blue eyed ski instructors from Norway liked lingerie.

Needing to refocus and _not _think about Felicity _doing _anything or anyone besides her little wilderness dance, Oliver barked at her, "I asked you a question."

"Yes, I'm cold. I think my protruding..."

"No." And he physically shook of her words... or, at least, the words he had partially interrupted and prevented. "What was with the creeping and clapping?"

"Oh." Felicity actually grinned. "I was scaring the skunks away."

Pivoting around on a bare heel, Oliver started to walk back to the tent, not saying a word.


	3. Day Three

**FF#4: Strategic Withdraw – Day Three**

**Flash Fic Prompt #4: Alone With You**

Walt Disney was one sick, twisted son of a... not so very nice lady.

It was all his fault.

Everything.

Despite the fact that thirty-six hours had passed since Oliver had seen her... trying to go to the bathroom, he had yet to stop mocking her. Laughing silently at her. (Maybe she couldn't hear him doing it, and maybe he was doing so while somehow managing to keep a straight face, but she saw through his idiotic playboy facade... though he had that act down to a science.) Mentally degrading her. What he didn't realize, however, was that it wasn't her fault.

It was Bambi's. And it was her mother's (for shoving Felicity in front of a television until she was old enough to shove herself in front of a computer). And it was Walt Disney's.

For whatever reason – call it practicality, perhaps it was because she was an analytical thinker, maybe it had something to do with her much-repressed (thank god) childhood, Felicity liked things to make sense. If something was said to be a certain way, then it should be that way. A spade was a spade. Ones were ones, and zeroes were zeroes. And, if an animal was named Flower, then it damn well better smell like a field full of frigging roses... you know, if roses grew in fields.

So, that's why she hated skunks. Why she feared them. Oh, Felicity knew that it was a ridiculous – childish even – phobia, but everybody had a weakness. She could live in an elevator – heck, she practically had as a freshman in college; small spaces were cozy. She thought black cats were cute, ladders made for great shelving solutions and inventive display cases, and thirteen was practically her lucky number. If Felicity was foolish enough to tear her money up and throw it away by playing the lottery, she'd totally select the number thirteen. And she could climb every mountain or scurry up any tree. Heights? Forget about 'em. Or so she assumed. Not that Felicity had every spent time climbing trees as a child, but that was only because computers didn't grow in them.

But that'd be awesome.

Especially if they were Macs, because Apples. Duh.

"Keep up. I'd like to get back to camp before sunset. I need to find us something to eat." Oliver meant kill. For the past too many meals, Felicity had been served wild game. When she got back to the office... _if _she ever made it back to the office, she was going to do some research on appetite harassment. Surely, that was a thing. If it wasn't, it should be. She'd make it one. "And you should... clean up before it gets dark." If he was implying that _she _was the one between the two of them that needed a little private creek time, Oliver Queen had another thing coming. If either of them smelled like butthole, it'd be the mountain man.

Grizzly Adams could suck it for all she cared.

… And totally not in a sexual way, because, though the guy was built like a brick shit ton house (and, yeah, she knew that wasn't really a thing, but he deserved the extra modifier.), his personality left _everything_ to be desired. She just meant that Oliver Queen could kiss her...

"Felicity, stop lagging behind. I don't have the time or the patience to come looking for you if you get yourself lost."

She gave him the bird. The California Howdy.

"I saw that."

"Yeah, well, apparently, spending time with you brings out my inner sailer. Too bad I couldn't say the same for the Gambit's crew five years ago."

So, that was a cheap shot, but she had just spent the entire day participating in team building exercises with the entire IT and Security Departments. She could handle the lack of plumbing and running water. Felicity could deal with the fact that she was pretty sure Alvin was now all on his own, because she and Oliver had chowed down on his backup singers for breakfast the morning before. She could even survive without a blow dryer and a flat iron for a week. But to insult her with a list of activities straight from a 'team building for dummies' website was like pouring salt in her retreat-sized wound.

Rock salt.

Because table salt was for pansies, and Oliver Queen ate pansies for breakfast.

No seriously.

He had fed her flowers for breakfast.

Flowers.

In fact, putting aside her gripes about being blindfolded and felt up all in the excuse of playing 'Minefield' for the entire afternoon and the lack of her modern girl in the city creature comforts, Felicity could admit that the straight-from-_Wrong-Turn_ woods were beautiful. Peaceful. In a fatalistic, masochistic way. In fact, she was even thinking about getting one of those noise maker machines that played birds, and running creeks, but didn't include the sounds of a jackass – human, not donkey – snoring if she ever saw her babies again.

Camping with a mule (remember, she was paranoid yet prepared-for-everything-but-a-wilderness-suicide-mission packer) would be preferable to camping with an Oliver.

"Ow," Felicity complained, reaching up to smack against and then rub the sting she suddenly felt right below her frizzy hairline.

"What, break a nail," Oliver taunted from out in front of her.

But his remark was an automatic one – something meant to irk her into annoyed submission. Though Oliver Queen was a dirty, rotten scoundrel, there was more to him than just a slutty, spoiled cad. Oh, she hated him. She hated him with the passion of a wronged telenovela heroine. But she also recognized the fact that he wasn't everything he portrayed himself as... or, more accurately, he was more than what he made himself out to be.

As Felicity ruminated on this, she started taking deeper breaths. Apparently, much to her irritation (at Oliver, because, well, he was Oliver) and bafflement (at herself, because she didn't remember making a conscience decision to do so), she had picked up her pace, despite having every intention not to... because Oliver wanted her to. Also, it wasn't just her neck itching; now, as she walked, she dug her _not _broken nails into her shoulders and upper arms, the small of her back and her sides.

While his nature-inspired team building activities left everything to be desired, Oliver's trapping and fishing skills would make even a Bonner man take notice, and he had the reflexes of a liger. Plus, she had seen him naked...ish? Yeah. Nakedish. Not only did he walk, talk, and sleep around (physically-speaking, not sexually) her shirtless, but he wasn't shy when it came to bathing either. The man was covered in scars – not the typical knee scrapes and busted elbow scars every man who was once a rambunctious boy sported but like hardcore _Braveheart_ battle wounds.

She was just thinking about Oliver Queen with two-thirds of his face painted blue when Felicity realized her slightly elevated breathing was now panting, that her tongue was swollen, and she felt like she was going to throw up. As she started to collapse – first falling to her knees and then going down onto her back with her legs bent awkwardly, she thought about two things: first, that there was more to Oliver leading the retreat when he had nothing to do with the company and his ban on all technology – especially given the break in at QC a couple weeks prior, and, secondly, that she really didn't want to die with hairy legs, because there was no way in _Northern-California-Forest_ that she was shaving in a river.

Oliver's face appeared hazy above her, and, before Felicity finally succumbed to her allergic reaction, she uttered just one word. "Nuts."

It seemed fitting... on so many levels.

Some time later, she came to, and everything was much the same as it had been before. Oliver was kneeling beside her – a cross between perturbation and worry dragging his features downward into premature lines and wrinkles, she was pretty sure that she was laying on top of what was either a giant turtle or a mossy rock that was oh-so-slowly sliding around underneath her, and she felt like microwaved death.

Oh, and there was a horrendous, bitter taste in her mouth, too.

"So, I've gone to hell, huh? I knew I shouldn't have illegally downloaded all those songs... and movies... and television episodes... in college. Drats."

"You should have told me you were allergic."

"Yeah, well, you shouldn't season your squirrels with nuts. That's just sick and twisted, Oliver."

His brow furrowed further... if at all possible. Seriously, someday the man was going to look like a Whedon demon if he didn't cool it with the vamp-face. "What are you talking about? You were stung by a bee."

"Huh."

"Huh," he repeated. And he totally couldn't pull off a 'huh' like Felicity could. Sarcasm amateur. "That's all you have to say?"

She sat up – wobbly so, but at least Felicity managed to do it on her own. "Yes – huh, because I didn't know I was allergic to bees. This is a new experience for me. Getting stung. I didn't much care for it, truth be told." Oliver rolled his pretty, pretty eyes. (Maybe she wanted to drive pointy sticks into those pretty, pretty eyes sometimes... er, most of the time, but she could still admit that they were pretty, pretty.) "Also, thank you. For finding my EpiPen and stabbing me. Was it as good for you as it was for me?" Those eyebrows then went sky high. "I mean, not dying. Of course."

Finally responding, he bit out between clenched teeth, "the next time you go camping with someone, tell them you carry an EpiPen."

"Oh. So then you didn't stab me." Tilting her head to the side, Felicity regarded Oliver curiously. "Why am I not dead?"

"I gave you some... herbs."

"Some _herbs_?"

"From the island."

"The island of what? Rainbow Dolphins? Those must have been some _herbs_."

Oliver stood, brushing his hands against his thighs. He didn't offer to help her stand, though she managed to climb up on her own. Eventually.

As they once more started making their way back to camp – again silent but this time, at least, at a much slower pace, Felicity found her mind returning to its previous focus. With every moment she spent with Oliver, she felt like she kept losing more and more of the pieces to his puzzle. Three days prior, she hadn't wanted to admit it, but she couldn't deny the truth any longer: he was a mystery, and, if there was one thing she hated more than Oliver Queen himself, it was a mystery.

Oh, and miss-named wildlife.

Stupid, creepy Walt Disney.


	4. Day Four

**FF#6: Strategic Withdraw – Day Four**

**Flash Fic Prompt #6: In the Dark**

Oliver came to with a gasp, jackknifing up from where he had been laying on his back. Fabric rustled around him. Otherwise, the night was silent. At first, he had expected to be on the island – the stillness and silence too oppressive, too familiar to be otherwise. But then he quickly remembered that he was home now... only, he wasn't in his bedroom. He couldn't see or recall where he was – the dark that of death and finality, but he knew it wasn't familiar. It wasn't the cave, and it wasn't the fuselage, but it could be somewhere else on Lian Yu – somewhere new and unknown? Maybe the last few months had all been a dream – returning to Starling, becoming The Hood, John, his sister.

His mother... and everything he now feared her capable of.

"Who's Shado?" Bouncing up to the balls of his feet, Oliver scrambled backwards, trying to get away from the person beside him. They weren't supposed to be there. Nobody was. The island was his alone... now. But, before he could get far – far enough to regain his composure and to access this new enemy, his back landed against something foreign – something soft, something cool, something that didn't belong, and he froze – poised to attack. "You've been calling out for her for like... hours. At first, I was going to wake you, but then I started thinking about Nicolas Brody... you know, _Homeland_, and I reconsidered my options."

He recognized that voice. He knew that voice. He hated that voice. "Felicity."

"Was that supposed to be a question, because I didn't hear a question mark, and why would you be asking who you were sharing a tent with? No one up at the camp is going to give up their cozy, comfy cabin for me."

He wasn't sure who he was trying to reassure when he said, "I was dreaming. It was just a dream." But Oliver could breathe easier after the words slipped past his dry, chapped lips, and he loosened his stance. He didn't sit down yet, but he also didn't hold himself as rigid and at the ready either.

Dryly, Felicity remarked, "you don't say." Maybe he couldn't actually see her, but he knew that an eye roll accompanied her sarcastic words. But then all humor vanished from her tone, and she suddenly sounded... vulnerable?... which was weird, because he was the one who had just exposed himself to her, so why would she feel powerless. She now held all the cards... even if she didn't realize it. "Do you... do you want to talk about it?" Before he could answer – a definitive no, she rushed to add, "I know we're not friends, but we're not enemies either... at least, not in the traditional sense, and, despite what the record may show, I do know how to listen. In fact, I'm an excellent listener. Tell me something once, and I'll never forget it. Like seriously. I'm like an elephant... only, you know with in-scale facial features and the capability to understand what I'm hearing."

As though, if he just looked hard enough into the inky blackness surrounding them, he could see her face, Oliver stared in the direction from which Felicity's voice was coming from. While he didn't actually see anything, he imagined her fidgeting – constantly toying with her fingers, pushing up her glasses, and clenching the hemline of her ridiculous pajamas. He found that, while thinking about what she was doing, he actually wanted to be able to see her. For some reason, her awkwardness around him was reassuring. Comforting. And he was still on edge from his dream, from the fact that, now apparently, Felicity knew of the name Shado. No one had said that name to him out loud in many years.

"Right, person, you have to tell me these things, okay? I've been awake and listening to you for like _thirty years_, okay? Throw me a frickin' bone here! I'm the boss. (I wish.) Need the info."

It was a quote... or, at least, it was the bastardization of a quote. It was a quote from what was no doubt some ridiculous movie that he'd either seen before or had missed during his _stay_ on the island, but Oliver was not in the right frame of mind for movie trivia. Rather, he was still mentally stuck in the hell that was seemingly perpetual rain, hunger, and desperation. Maybe it was dry inside of that tent with Felicity, but, in his mind, the two of them were smack dab in the middle of Lian Yu – Shado long dead and Felicity an unwanted intruder upon her memory and his solitary. She didn't belong in his purgatory with him, and he'd drag her back to the present, back to what was real, even if he had to do so with her kicking and screaming the entire time.

"Alright, fine, if you don't want to tell me about Shado, then at least tell me about those herbs you gave me. I have a right to know what you put inside me," Felicity insisted. And then she groaned. "And, by inside me, I mean my body. My mouth. And this isn't sounding any less dirty, so I'm just going to stop talking in three, two, one..."

He decided to take pity on her and at least respond. "All you need to know is that they saved your life, and there aren't any side effects... I don't think."

"Oliver," she yelled his name, obviously losing her patience... not that she had displayed having much since they had arrived in the woods almost four days prior. "That doesn't tell me anything! _You're_ not telling me anything. If you don't want to talk about Shado, if you don't want to tell me about your dream, and if you refuse to give me any information about your secret, magic potion that smells and tastes like what I assume feline urine tastes like, then talk about... I don't know, the island. I'm too on edge after your nightmare to go back to sleep, so I can only imagine just how much you don't want to close your eyes again, and it's obvious that you weren't alone for these past fives years."

He must have made some mew of displeasure, some squeak of argument, because she insisted, "Oliver, I've seen you naked. Well, kind of naked. I'm not a peeping tom or anything; I didn't watch you bathe. But I've seen enough to know that your scars aren't the work of some angsty teenage cutter; you've been tortured – shot, stabbed, burned, and who knows what else. If neither of us are going back to sleep anytime soon, we might as well do something productive, and I think we both know you need to talk to someone. No matter what you think of me, I'm not a gossip. What happens in the tent, stays in the tent."

He believed her. Plus, Oliver knew enough about Felicity Smoak to know that, despite getting on his last nerve, she had integrity. If she said that she was willing to listen, she'd listen. If she said that she would keep his secrets, she wouldn't breathe a word he told her to anyone else. But his secrets were too potent for casual unburdening, especially on some bubblegum pink IT specialist. No, they were his cross to bear, and he'd do so alone. "There's nothing to talk about." While he wasn't going to confide in her, he also wasn't going to insult her intelligence by lying either. Besides, Felicity would see right through any story he could possibly come up with.

For several moments, she was quiet, and Oliver hoped that he had pushed her away, pissed her off enough to get her to drop... well, everything – that she would settle back down into her sleeping bag and, even if it took her a while to go back to sleep, would lay there in silence. He was just about to do that himself when her voice once more surrounded him, her words making him sit up just that much straighter. "Fine. Then why don't you tell me why we're really out here." He went to respond with some inane regurgitation of the cover story she and the rest of the security and tech departments had been told when Felicity said, "and don't even try to feed me the lie that this is the company retreat. We both know there's something else going on here. I might have been too angry when we first arrived to put all the pieces together, but, like I said, I've been awake for a long time tonight... this morning – just sitting here, listening to your nightmare. And thinking. I've done a lot of thinking, Oliver."

Any bitterness, any ire, any humor even had been banished from her tone, replaced with demanding confidence. He took a few seconds to contemplate his options, but, really, it was just a pointless attempt to arrange his thoughts, because he knew she had him trapped. There was no way that he couldn't give her... something. By coming out into the woods – away from technology and civilization, he had taken a necessary risk. Their location was so remote that, if anyone was seriously hurt, their chances of survival would be slim... as had become quite evident the day before when Felicity was stung. Even if he had called for help or had picked her up and taken her to the nearest town, they were simply too far removed.

Queen Consolidated would never put themselves in such a position. A wrongful death lawsuit could cripple the company, shut it down even. So, while he had gone to his mother and Walter and feigned sudden interest in QC – offering to run the company retreat that year, he had been less than honest with them about what he had planned. As far as QC was concerned, they were someplace with trained professionals and a first aid cabin – a quick ride from a hospital, law enforcement, and all the other trappings of polite and safe society. The plan was that nothing would happen that could jeopardize his cover, and, then, when they all returned to Starling safe and sound, his mother and step-father would be none-the-wiser, and Oliver would have the information he needed about Queen Consolidated's role in The Undertaking.

He was never supposed to have to reveal so much of himself to Felicity, she was never supposed to get hurt, and they were never supposed to be about to have the conversation they needed to have, because she wasn't wrong: something else _was _going on, and he just hoped that a partial truth would be enough to help protect the bigger lie.

Sighing, Oliver admitted, "you're right."

"I knew it," Felicity exclaimed. He could hear a sense of victory lacing her words. It should have been amusing, but he just found it frightening. "This... this is all a ruse. Or a cover. Walter told you, didn't he?" At this step-father's name, Oliver came to attention. What did Walter have to do with anything? He thought he was clean. He thought that he was being duped by Moira just as much as everyone else. "He told you that I was looking into something for him, right – that I might have pushed a little too hard? I swear, though, Oliver, that I stopped digging into your mother when he told me to. Trust me, Walter made his point. I like my job; and I like my car, and my apartment, and my shoes. I don't want to be fired."

What the hell was she talking about? Despite the sun still being hours away from rising, his eyes frantically flickered around the dark tent as he sought to make sense of Felicity's rambling confession. But, before he could latch onto one thing, she was already moving forward and revealing two more. "He didn't need to have you bring me out here – cook up this whole lie in order to what... scare me straight? I won't go to the cops, and, when we get back, I'll destroy everything that I've found on Tempest. I promise. Oh, and the notebook, too. All he had to do was ask."

Finally latching onto something, Oliver heard himself asking, "what the hell is Tempest?" And a notebook? _His _notebook?

Even though he was now wide awake, apparently, his nightmare was just beginning.


	5. Day Five

**FF#8: Strategic Withdraw – Day Five**

**Flash Fic Prompt #8: Nothing to Hide**

There was this window in the morning, after Felicity woke up, when she found herself begrudgingly enjoying being out in the middle of nowhere. It happened before she realized she needed to use the restroom... and that there was no restroom to use; before her stomach grumbled and she was faced with yet another breakfast of berries and whatever de-furred cartoon character was on the menu; and before she felt that urge to run her fingers over the hard, smooth surface of her favorite electronics. There was just something... grounding about waking up to the sounds of nature as compared to the sounds of civilization and progress.

However, this did, by no means, translate into a need to say arrivederci to her life and make like a doomsday prepper out in the middle of nowhere; it just meant that she might invest in a sound machine when arriving back in Starling City. _If she ever arrived back in Starling City._ That way, she could have the best of both worlds: birds singing her awake in the morning so that she could enjoy modern plumbing, bagels with smear, and scrolling through her RSS feed on the brand new tablet Oliver was going to buy for her to compensate for his murdering of her beloved babies.

Speaking of Oliver, however...?

Usually, he was the one who crashed her early morning love of nature parties, not her recollections of home. To say that Oliver Queen was an impatient man was to say that she kind of liked mint-chip ice cream. Or that she could live without needles. Or that Oliver wasn't exactly her favorite person in the world. If she somehow managed to get comfortable sleeping on tree roots instead of a mattress and snoozed past the butt-crack of dawn, he was right there, waking her. Rudely. Because that's the only way, apparently, Oliver Queen knew how to do anything.

He truly was an ogre. (Although, he didn't have onion breath, so that made sleeping next to him a whole hell of a lot better.) Somebody should seriously find a cave, put him inside of it, and then roll a giant boulder in front of what was hopefully the only entrance. But, knowing Oliver, he'd probably just carve a fancy-pants, 'I'm a rich boy who grew up in a palace' doorway through the rock. With his teeth. And still be attractive afterwards... even all beard-y and dust covered.

Wait.

She didn't mean that.

Oliver wasn't attractive.

At all.

Needing to distract herself, because, if she managed to survive the next few days, that meant that she still needed to survive the next few days... with Oliver, and she couldn't do that _and _want to be locked inside that cave with him – naked – at the same time. Hastily throwing on some clothes over/under her pajamas and wrapping herself in a large, over-sized cardigan, Felicity pulled on a pair of slipper-boots and made her way outside of the tent, taking several deep breaths once she was free and clear of their little shelter. The air was morning cold and fresh, and it stung her lungs slightly. The smarting was good, though. Bracing.

Once outside, Felicity closed her eyes. And then she counted to ten, chastising herself the entire time. Just because Oliver showed a teeny-tiny moment of vulnerability the night before, just because, for the briefest of seconds, it had felt like they had actually made a connection with each other, that did not mean that she had to go and start acting like such a... like such a girl! She was better than that; she knew better than that. So what if Oliver let his guard down and had a nightmare in front of her? Who cares that he actually admitted that their little camping excursion was all a big, bug-covered ruse? That didn't mean that she had to start believing that there was more to Oliver Queen than what met the eye, that didn't mean that she should want to strip him naked and rub those magic herbs all over his body, and that certainly didn't mean that she should want to fix him.

Counting down and yelling at herself, however, wasn't working, so Felicity set out to find the one thing that could make her hate Oliver again: Oliver. For someone who had been hiding from her – first verbally, then emotionally, and now physically – since the word _Tempest_ had been introduced to his vocabulary the night before, Oliver really wasn't that hard to find. She found him lingering behind a tree about 100 yards from the tent.

At first, Felicity thought maybe he was watching their breakfast, waiting for his moment to pounce. (She had no doubt that Oliver could run on all fours and catch his prey like a chetah.) But then she heard him talking, and she had to admit that his voice was a much better way to attack wildlife. After all, listening to him made her want to lemming it over a cliff, too, sometimes. Figuring what was good for the jackass was good for the jenny, Felicity decided to try and sneak up on Oliver... only she was the one who was in for an _advanced_ surprise.

"I think you can forget about everybody but Felicity. I mean, Miss Smoak."

Hearing her name, she paused, took a step backwards, and then made sure that she was hidden from sight on the other side of Oliver's tree. Thankfully, he was distracted by talking about her on a mother-flippin' cell phone, so she could eavesdrop undetected. Unfortunately, her hearing wasn't ultrasonic like Oliver's, so she couldn't make out what was being said on the other end of the line.

"Focus on the word Tempest. See whatever you can find about it." During every pause, Oliver's words and tone seemed to become harsher. Colder. More emotionally distant. "You were right. My mother's involved. Walter had Felicity... Miss Smoak... digging into her." Tighter. More clipped. "There's more." Felicity closed her eyes. There was so much venom in Oliver's voice that she couldn't see the beauty of the morning while listening to it. When her eyes fluttered shut, however, a black and white image of Starling City's vigilante – the one that had been circulating through all the papers and news websites – taunted her for reasons that she wasn't quite ready to consider yet. "She knows about the notebook – _my father's notebook_."

What did a long-dead Robert Queen have to do with... well, anything, starting with why she was currently stuck out in the middle of nowhere with this returned from the dead son?

"And check her place, too. Miss Smoak is thorough. Obsessive. She wouldn't have just worked on this while on the clock; she would have kept looking at home, too." While Oliver was right, that didn't make up for how wrong it was for him to send someone to invade her privacy like that. "Just... confiscate all her electronics. She'll have more than you can go through before someone gets suspicious. And stage it to look like a break in. That way she can report it and her renter's insurance will cover replacement..."

That was as far as Oliver got before Felicity blew her top. Charging around the tree, she did the first thing she could think of to express her anger: she plucked the cell phone from Oliver's hands, screamed, and then turned, tossing the slim device into the stream... the very same stream where a good portion of her own gadgets and gizmos were swimming with Nemo and Dory. (So what if they were technically salt-water fish? She was running a little short of aquatic character references here.)

"What the hell, Felicity?!"

"Yes, exactly, Oliver," she whirled around to face him – chest heaving, hands clenched into fists on her hips, loud voice fully engaged. "What. The. Hell?" He blinked at her, obviously caught off guard and not knowing how to respond. Sputtering, she finally expanded upon her fury. "Double standard much?"

He shook his head in confusion. "What are you...?"

"Don't you dare ask me what I'm talking about," Felicity snapped. "You know exactly why I'm mad."

"I do?"

"You destroyed every piece of tech I brought with me, and, all this time, you've been playing Candy Crush in secret!"

Oliver sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and, when he finally said something, he had the audacity to actually sound exasperated... with her! "Felicity, do you really think that I'd bring two entire departments out to the middle of nowhere without some means of getting help in case there was an emergency?"

"Oh, so telling someone to steal my computers and make it look like a Goldilocks moment gone wrong was an emergency, huh?" Even as Felicity heard her own voice becoming more and more shrill, she couldn't calm down. "Who exactly... besides my computers... is in danger of dying, Oliver?"

For several minutes, he watched her - _really _studied her. Felicity could see the wheels turning in his head... like his brain was a hamster – an accurate comparison, she had no doubt. She wanted to squirm under his observation, but there was something that instinctively told her that, to do so, would lessen Oliver's estimation of her. And, despite everything, she wanted him to like her, to trust her, to confide in her. So, she stood still. She tilted her chin up at impossibly stubborn angle, and she waited patiently, meeting his gaze head on without blinking. When Oliver finally answered, she witnessed all of his strength seemingly flow out of him in one, single exhale.

"Everybody."


End file.
